After 118 years, Queen’s will today say a tearful goodbye to Hampden...
END OF AN ERA FOR THE SPIDERS AND THEIR SUPER-FANS
THE last time Keith McAllister missed a Queen’s Park home game at Hampden the Beatles were in their mop-top prime, Harold Wilson was Britain’s Prime Minister and they were still pushing Hillman Imps out of a factory in Linwood.
The last time he missed a Spiders game of any description — home or away — the nation was seized by a winter of discontent in 1979.
A bookkeeper by trade, McAllister finds it difficult to calculate how many times he has watched Queen’s Park in action since addiction struck at the age of seven.
He turned 64 yesterday and the fixation will prevail until his final breath.
This weekend, however, the club play their last-ever Hampden home game against Stranraer after a 118-year residence.
Last August, the national stadium was sold to the Scottish FA in a £5million deal and, despite a building dispute, plans are in place to move to a new 1,900 seat custom-built home at nearby Lesser Hampden next season.
Covid-19 has already deprived fans of a proper farewell to Hampden. And when the lower leagues were suspended in January it nearly robbed them of a crack at promotion as well.
Yet, when League Two fixtures resume today, McAllister will fill his usual berth as a co-commentator on Queen’s Park TV. And he fully expects to have something in his eye at the final whistle.
‘I will do my very best to take in the final moments,’ he tells Sportsmail. ‘I’ve no doubt at the end of this game against Stranraer that I will be feeling very emotional. Hampden has been Queen’s Park’s spiritual home. It has been my second home.
‘I used to go there for all Queen’s Park games, cup finals, amateur cup finals and Junior cup finals. I went to Scotland-England games and I was at the European Cup semi-final between Celtic and Leeds United in April 1970.
‘Any game at Hampden and I was there. I might actually have been at more games at Hampden than anyone else still living.
‘It was really only on Tuesday that we learned the lower-league games were going to start up again. That’s great because Queen’s Park are having a good season and we don’t have many good seasons, so you want this to carry on.
‘We heard the season would restart this Saturday. But it might be our last game at Hampden.
‘There was a tear in my eye when I thought about it. I was really quite sad about that. And I can already imagine myself feeling very emotional when the final whistle blows on Saturday.’
An amateur club for 152 years, Queen’s Park had become an anachronistic curiosity. The sale of Hampden to the SFA allowed them to embark on a new era of professionalism.
Backed by the financial clout of Lord Willie Haughey, the club renounced their amateur status and defied the ravages of coronavirus by turning full-time this season and hiring former Hibernian chief executive Leeann Dempster to oversee the move to Lesser Hampden and overhaul the football operations.
Sanguine over the decision by members to sell Hampden, McAllister is willing to concede that the stadium had become a financial albatross around the club’s neck.
None of which makes it any less of a wrench to leave the place.
‘The last time I missed a Queen’s Park home game of any description was 1972 when they were getting work done at Hampden and the game was played at Lesser Hampden, next door,’ he says.
‘So the last time I missed a home game at Hampden was the 1960s.
‘I was local and when I was seven there was a boy in my class at school called David McNeil who asked if I fancied going up to watch Queen’s Park. It sounded good to me.
‘I can’t remember much about the game. Not even the opponents. But Queen’s became my team that day. I found something to do on a Saturday that I enjoyed.
‘I suppose if you’re a supporter of Celtic or Rangers you get upset about things a wee bit more.
‘If you support a team like Queen’s Park you take setbacks and failure in your stride.’
Racking his brain for personal Hampden highlights, there are years he prefers to forget.
‘I’ve been going to watch Queen’s Park for 57 years now and we haven’t won very much.’
Under Eddie Hunter — father of current club president David — Queen’s won the old Second Division in season 1980/81 after a 1-1 draw with Cowdenbeath in Mount Florida.
Another fond memory stems from the day his dedication to the cause was recognised before a must-win game against Brechin City in 2000.
‘The club made a presentation to me for watching Queen’s Park for a thousand years, or however long I’ve been going, and all my family came along,’ he says.
‘We had a player on loan, Paul Walker, who got the ball two yards inside the Brechin half and just kept on running.
‘There was just a half second of absolute silence before the place went bonkers when he put the ball in the net.
‘That goal stands out as my personal favourite Queen’s Park Hampden memory.’
After 50 years of Hampden memories, Covid-19 posed a new and unwelcome threat to a level of dedication some might find excessive.
With the turnstiles locked, a way had to be found to accommodate the club’s most loyal and relentless supporter.
‘I had gone 41 years without missing a Queen’s Park game home or away. But the club decided to provide their own stream of games, as most clubs are doing. And they needed a co-commentator to fill in the dead air time with statistics and so on,’ says McAllister.
‘Someone suggested that I do it. And that means I am still getting to the games.
‘There’s a bit of homework involved, but it has given me the chance to keep going to games. And, come Saturday, I am going to be there for the last Queen’s Park game at Hampden. Possibly ever.’
The regret for club and fans alike is that more can’t be there to see it. Granted a temporary lease to keep playing at Hampden by the SFA, the agreement ends on March 31 to give Euro 2020 organisers a chance to begin preparations in earnest — assuming Glasgow is still a host city.
‘It’s a huge shame the fans have had no opportunity to say farewell,’ sighs McAllister.
‘I would just love the SFA to say: “Come on, back to Hampden for one game…”.
‘A lot of people would want to go and see Queen’s Park’s last game at Hampden. It shouldn’t happen like this after 118 years.
‘There are fans of a team in Germany we have a link with called Wattenscheid and back in the 90s they made it to the Bundesliga before disappearing off the footballing map.
‘They were like Gretna. But 10 or 20 of their fans come over every season and we go over there as well. They said: “We’ll be there for your last game”.
‘We’ve had emails from fans of other clubs asking: “When is the last game, we want to be there”.
‘But this has happened very much last minute and I’m hoping the SFA will provide us with an opportunity to let supporters say a proper goodbye.’
On October 31, 1903, Queen’s Park played their first game at the third incarnation of Hampden with a 1-0 win over Celtic in front of 38,000 fans. ‘It would be nice — and fitting — to win the last game,’ adds their biggest fan.
‘We won that first one at Hampden when we beat Celtic all those years ago. Wouldn’t it be nice to win the last game at Hampden as well?’